IndyBlog

Tancredo (tea) parties on

As the tea party movement tries to go national with its first-ever convention in Nashville, who other than Colorado's Tom Tancredo would you pick to set the right tone?

For those who find the idea of watching Tancredo on video too painful to contemplate, the basic gist of what the former U.S. representative said is that the country need a civics literacy test to prevent electoral outcomes like we saw in 2008.

"People who could not even spell the word 'vote,' or say it in English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House," Tancredo said. "His name is Barack Hussein Obama."

The convention, which cost $549 to attend, started Thursday and ends Saturday morning.

Tea partiers clearly represent the right-wing fringe, but Republicans everywhere face a challenge in the upcoming election trying to satisfy them while reaching out to mainstream voters. Scott McInnis, the GOP gubernatorial frontrunner in Colorado, was reminded of this during a recent visit to Colorado Springs. (See the Indy's story on that dynamic here.)